False Headway
by Dream Writer 4 Life
Summary: Phones, coffee, and hope are not for her. Gap filler between 3.17 "The Frame" and 3.18 "Unveiled." A Dream Writer Experience.


**Title:** False Headway  
**Author:** Dream Writer 4 Life  
**Genre:** Angst  
**Rating:** PG for language  
**Archived:** SD-1, here, and my site. Anywhere else, just ask and you shall receive!  
'**Shippers' Paradise:** V/L, S/V  
**Spoilers/Timeline:** Up through 3.17 "The Frame;" gap filler between "The Frame" and 3.18 "Unveiled"  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. Period. End of story. Wait, no it's not! Keep reading!  
**Summary:** Phones, coffee, and hope are not for her. A Dream Writer Experience.  
**Suggested Soundtrack:** "Let Go" by Frou Frou, "True" by Ryan Cabrera, "Mr. Curiosity" by Jason Mraz, "Shed Some Light" by Shinedown, "Complaints De La Bout" by Rufus Wainwright, and "Cry Ophelia" by Adam Cohen.  
**Author's Note:** This turned out completely different than what I first envisioned when I wrote down my idea for this story. Anyway, there are a lot of literary techniques I was playing around with here. Hopefully, they add a deeper understanding. And hopefully, you enjoy!

False Headway

Just another night.

And she is just another woman drinking another hot chocolate in another Starbucks in Los Angeles.

Admittedly, she Starbucks hops, never in the same one two nights in a row. More variety that way. More anonymity. Less chance that she will run into him. Only one barista attends the incessantly churning machines, making her grateful: at the last Starbucks, the two college students would not stop cheeping and pecking, their insanely inane conversation more annoying than a car alarm. And this barista keeps to himself. After he finishes cleaning the machines and their well-oiled parts, he does not venture into the rest of the shop; instead, he unearths a pair of scissors and begins to erect a statue of red and white coffee stirrers.

She peers down at her own stirrer, lounging at an angle in her hot chocolate, and wonders if it wishes it could be up on that front counter. Could be manipulated — twisted, bent — by those obviously artistic hands. Could be part of something bigger than its normal lot in life. Sneaking another peek at the baristartist, his shaggy blonde hair shrouding his eyes as his hands fly, she extracts the stirrer and flicks it into the garbage.

She wanted a brand name. She could have cloistered herself inside any of the hundreds of late-night, off-the-beaten-path cafés with the stupid names that seem clever at first but upon repeated hearing, seem ridiculous, but 'cloistered' is not what she wants to be. She wants to be hidden. Starbucks — the giant chain and brand name with a store on practically every corner — provides that, and she revels in the anonymity. The park across the street, complete with shimmery fountain, provides the perfect counterpoint, juxtapositioning its solidarity and individuality with her conformity and . . . hidingness. She likes the brand name.

Despite its products' lack of taste.

The mellow indie music has yet to run out despite the clock hands rapidly approaching vertical. For the time, Baristartist keeps the Muzak at bay. As some young, naïve brunette (she knows) warbles about true love persisting through all the tribulations life poses over time, she becomes increasingly bitter towards the young beauty (she _knows_), and to prevent a more severe frown than she already maintains, her brain tosses the lyrics in a box and shoves them out her ears again, concentrating on the details of those around her instead.

Despite the insanely late hour, a few people linger in the Starbucks across from the park, and the conglomerated mix serves as a distraction from the nausea of the betraying indie music and her own betrayal-filled life.

The least interesting of the small group resides the closest to her. Obviously a college student, the girl hunches over a laptop notebook and furtively rifles through pages upon pages of notes before typing a paragraph. The colour-coded highlighters and pens stand out even from two tables away, so this is not an essay due in mere hours that the writer forgot in the blur of more important priorities, like trying the new flavor of Captain Morgan. If her personal college days were any indicator, this essay is due in at least a week, and this young college student — who would normally dart shy glances at Bartistartist — is merely trying to escape a boozing roommate, rowdy floormates, and an oppressive library atmosphere. The girl's need to feel less alone in the world radiates even from her typing: her iPod sits neglected and a waste of money on a corner of the table.

Idly, she wonders if the girl writes an English paper.

Closest to the fire on the opposite side of the room, a teenager of no more than eighteen is swallowed up by an oversized red armchair, the contrast between his pallid skin and dyed black hair setting off her Oh-He's-THAT-Type -of-Kid Alarm. Red suspenders slide off his bony shoulders, and he repeatedly pushes them back up again, glancing up quickly to see if anyone notices. The boy — she refuses to call him a man — picks idly at his nonexistent fingernails in between suspender duty; not even a backpack lies at his feet. He sits on the surface of the chair, refusing to sink into the cushioning in the event of someone finding out it is past his bedtime.

She wonders what he is running from.

Near the bathrooms, a middle-aged woman perches on a less severely-padded armchair with her legs crossed at the knees, a worn paperback lying across her lap. The foot in the air bounces in time to an internal beat and out of time to the beats around them. Half-moon glasses perch on the end of her slightly hooked nose, and she makes no move to push them back up again. Her eyes read the words, and her fingers turn the pages, but the emotion in her face pools into the fine wrinkles and bleeds off her chin. Her hair does not shine, and her mouth does not smile. The woman absently spins a thin gold band around her ring finger, and suddenly she knows what this woman is running from.

At a bank of bar stools at a ledge by the windows slumps a trucker, his red plaid shirt stained with grease, oil, and food that missed his mouth. A cap with grime layered in the same spot on the bill rides low on his brow. He is obviously misguided: he must have missed the seedy diner two blocks south.

Despite their oddities and discrepancies, these four strangers seem to fit together like a five-note chord on the piano: whether together or pulled apart, they can hold their own. She, however, is discord personified; the seventh note in a scale; the unresolved cadence; too sharp, too flat, too . . . not them. While they are a quick and graceful chord stroked on the piano, she is an opera singer who collapses on the ivory keys, sending up a sound so hideous that even Philip Glass runs for cover. She acknowledges the offset atmosphere by burying her head in a magazine — a Reader's Digest from the first year she went missing.

No one knows the real reason she cannot blend into the background for the first time in her life. No one but the one person she hates to see but longs to touch.

So every night since one phone call dissolved the Scotch tape and Crazy Glue that held together the remnants of her life, she Starbucks hops until either the barista kicks her out or, if she is lucky, she falls asleep at the table, and they politely ask her to leave. She never brings her cell phone with her for fear of another dissolving phone call — the land line at home remains plugged in for her father's benefit. And that is why she avoids her own home — _He_ may call again.

And she does not drink coffee anymore.

It disappoints her too much.

But she is so thirsty.

She people-watches when the old magazines and newspapers Marshall insists on leaving at her desk every morning start to bore her. It makes her feel like she is back at work, and work makes her feel safe — nothing can hurt her there. Which strikes her as so completely ironic but, hey, so is the fact that she has been ditched by her soul mate twice in her life for the woman he was currently with because her father died, and if _she_ tried to pull that trick, one, entirely too many internationally-wanted terrorists would piss their pants in happiness and two, she would be out of family members that have _not_ tried to kill her.

Maybe not _ironic_ so much as _incredibly shitty._

That call hurt her so much, it nearly killed her. She literally felt her heart stop, and for a moment, she feared it would never start again. The only way she knew she had yet to shuffle off this mortal coil? Her thumb spasmed and clicked the end button on the cordless phone. Otherwise, someone could have planted her in a garden, and no one would have known the difference between the newly petrified Agent Sydney Bristow and a tree trunk. She has yet to regain more emotion than the latter: she holds everything, everyone at arms' length — what is the use in getting close, in letting him garner a foothold on her heart when one single, solitary, fucking stupid phone call can dissolve supposedly non-biodegradable products?

What is the use in feeling when she is only going to get hurt again?

Hope is for those who look at reality and cannot see the truth.

Hope is for those who do not own black clothing.

Hope is . . .

. . . Is not for her.

Hope has burned her too many times to have any hope for hope in her life ever again.

Which is why when _He_ walks into _her_ Starbucks and orders a Chai tea, she has no _hope_ that she will evaporate on the spot.

Instead, her brain begins mapping escape routes on instinct. On instinct. Since when have her instincts dictated that he must need escaping? And this particular Starbucks is as close to his house as the United States is to becoming Communist; what is he doing here? This momentary pause for reflection erases any thought she had of going unnoticed. As Baristartist dirties his painstakingly cleaned machines (and neglects to hide his sculpture), _He_ just happens to turn around and just happens to catch her nearly sprinting out the door. She cannot leave now after being spotted, so she changes course and tosses her magazine into the garbage before retreating back into her corner to await Fate. Or a well-timed bolt of lightning from a spontaneous, winter, indoor thunderstorm. Whichever comes first.

He quickly scoops up his uncharacteristic tea but also changes course, making a detour to the napkin stand, presumably to collect his scattered thoughts. Serves him right, she thinks. Barging in here, probably fed up with repeatedly reaching only her answering machine and voicemail, prepared to force the issue. Funny: he didn't have a backbone before.

In the time it takes him to regain his bearings, she is still gloating, and as he beelines for her sequestered table, she kicks herself for neither taking the time to construct the Bitchiest Back-Off Speech of All Time nor bolt. She can only grip her cardboard cup tighter as he slides the chair out and seats himself without a word.

The others in the Starbucks peer at him questioningly, wondering why in the world would he want to sit with the outcast of the quintet. Internally, she spits in disgust: he fits in better with these people than she does! He even completes the Weirdness Circle: a suit, albeit a bit wrinkled, still hangs from his tired form — he obviously just came from the office. Pleasantly, she notes the missing tie and undone first few buttons: apparently, she now revels in his stressful days. Oh, what happens to a person with no hope.

Despite his bold advance, he does not want to speak first. Both of them silently push the obligation back and forth over the top of the varnished wood table, and she ends up shrugging her mental shoulders and croaking, "They have good hot chocolate here." Not the wittiest sentence on the face of the planet, but she supposes it will do.

"Yeah, so I hear. Tea's pretty decent, too." So he doesn't win the award, either.

Now the uncomfortable silence. Everyone but Baristartist goes back to his or her previous task; Baristartist returns to cleaning the machines with great disdain.

He pretends to take a long drag from his cup when in reality, he only sips, obviously regretting not ordering his usual coffee with two creams and a sugar. The question percolates to her lips without bidding, somehow bypassing her internal censors. "Why aren't you drinking coffee?"

"I hate coffee," he answers without hesitation. "Doesn't suit me anymore."

"That's funny, 'cause I saw you with a cup when you walked in this morning, and on your _coffee break_, and at lunch—"

"Sydney." She lowers her eyes as she realizes he caught on to her euphemism. The others in the shop perk up at the mention of a name, and he notices, bringing his head closer to hers in an attempt to maintain their privacy but violates her personal space in the process. She leans back and tilts her chin in a futile attempt to avoid him and the situation. He ignores her defiant gesture and instead nods toward the door and the darkness beyond. "Let's get out of here. Let's take a walk in the park." Some foreign force takes over her body then, because it begins moving of its own accord, first nodding and then rising from her seat to accompany him outside. They garner the attention of the others, especially the reading woman; perhaps she catches the gleam of his wedding ring as he holds the door.

They make a rather odd pair: a suit and potentially crazy woman in only loose-fitting pajama pants and a thermal top in fifty-degree weather. She ensures a wide berth between them as they enter the park across the street from her anonymity, her shelter, her safety. Harsh orange streetlamps line the cobblestone path that snakes around the grass, slithering next to cast-iron benches and narrowly missing small statues and fountains. The cloud ceiling hangs low over their heads, glowing an eerie pink and making her wish (not for the first time) that she lived in the country: she used to love the stars when she was younger. She allows thoughts such as these to wander through her fried brain as they stroll down the path in silence, both still clutching their Starbucks cups and their shreds of sanity. Time seems to stand still in the icky way, the way that makes her want to gouge out her eyeballs and fry them like meatballs just to make sure that the man-made construct still applies to her. Even with the passing scenery, she cannot tell if they have been walking for three hours or three minutes: to her, all trees look alike, and it seems like every plaque commemorates Ida B. Donahue's contribution to the community. Even her hot chocolate refuses to cooperate: no matter how many times she sips the lukewarm liquid, the cup remains half-empty.

When he finally speaks, the words feel like a lover's caress on her cheek rather than a statement that takes piecing together in her brain to comprehend. "I called you."

"I know." Her voice sounds calmer than she thought she could produce, and she starts to thank whoever took over her body. "You seem to be doing that a lot lately." With that single double-edged comment, she snatches back control of Sydney Bristow.

But he does not seem fazed. "I left messages. Many messages on many different occasions. When was the last time you touched your cell phone?"

Wrong question, buddy. "When a phone call destroyed me all over again." The venom feels so incredibly good flowing off her tongue. "My life is still under construction; I don't need another failed support right now."

He sighs heavily and bows his head. "I deserve that."

"Damn right!" For a moment, she thinks it prudent to storm off in a haze of chocolate waftiness, but his next words still her feet completely.

"I'm sorry." Her hesitation must give him strength because he soldiers on. "I know I've hurt you—"

"Yes, you did."

"—And I don't deserve forgiveness or even the time of day from you—"

"No, you don't."

"—But you've got to believe that I had no intention of hurting you, Syd." Does her heart dare hope to beat again? Turning to face her, he searches for her eyes in the dim light. "Lauren's father committing suicide falls into the unforeseen event category. There's no way that I could've known that her father was going to die, and no decent person would file for divorce in the midst of making funeral arrangements."

"No decent person would—" She stops herself, her superhuman control of words stemming a flood that she might have regretted.

But he wants to hear them, maybe for his own self-torturing, masochistic pleasure. After her pause, he coaxes, "Finish the sentence, Sydney."

Her posture straightens as she rewards her previous mental statement, choosing her phrases and emphasis carefully. "No decent person would hurt the woman he loves." Vague enough to hide behind but pointed enough so that _he knows. He knows._

Their cups hang forgotten at their sides, both half-full.

He decides not to respond. Instead, he resumes trudging down the path with his gaze setting the cobblestone ablaze, and she follows along beside him with a triumphant yet sober and thoroughly unsatisfied air. The silence seems to have found a wrench and now wants to see how tightly it can wind the tension between the two of them. Her words hang in the air like the smell of burnt popcorn: no matter how far they walk from the scene of the accident, it still permeates every orifice. She refuses to be the one to break their current stalemate: he knows exactly where she stands; his position, however, seems less like the stalwart ally she's used to and more like Sark's allegiances. It is up to him to set the boundaries.

They come upon the shimmery fountain she saw from the window of her Starbucks, and they stop to watch the water bubble up in a vertical line, defying gravity if only for a moment before the lights from beneath expose its impertinence, its foolishness, and the water cascades over itself back down to humility.

Story of her life.

She sips from her cup.

Vaughn stares into the illuminated clearness. "You probably don't believe me, but I meant everything I said." She doesn't understand, but maybe she blacked out somewhere along the walk, so she shrugs her confusion but refuses to look at him again. He clarifies, "About you. About how I feel. About my intentions for my marriage."

This could spell disaster.

Despite her vehement disdain for the betraying emotion, she feels the telltale warmth of hope begin to bloom in her torso somewhere near her left kidney. Her bruised and battered heart prepares to wage an epic war against the feeling, but instead her brain sweeps up the organ and begins to play volleyball — with it as the ball. Should she believe him this time? Was he really going to follow through on his (repeatedly broken) promise? Or would he slice through her hopes like Baristartist through the coffee stirrers? Pillage her heart, leaving it a bloody mass of pulp and sinew? Would he let her down again? She does not think she can live through that again.

"Come here." He leads them to a nearby bench, tossing their still half-full cups into a chained down can. As she seats herself, curly tendrils of a tingling sensation begin rolling throughout her body, enveloping her stomach and coiling about her tongue, making her feel giddy and lightheaded.

Please, _please_ give her the answer she seeks.

Don't disappoint her.

Don't let her down.

He tears his gaze from the fountain and fixes it instead to her wide and waiting eyes. "I'm staying at Weiss's place tonight and through the weekend. Guess I'm not a very decent person."

That is the last straw. Hope finally grips at her heart and brain, interrupting their game of volleyball. She feels like a weight has been lifted: Zeus allows Atlas a reprieve for a few minutes. The two of them finally make headway in their vastly-more-than-complicated relationship. A light giggle escapes from her throat as he completely engulfs her in the Best Hug She's Ever Had EVER. He murmurs assurances into her ear as one hand soothes her hair and the other stutters over her back.

She has but one thought:

This is it.

She's made it to the other side of despair.

He notices her shivering body beneath his fingertips and puckering skin against his cheek, and he offers his blazer to her shoulders, sparking an entirely too easy conversation about everything and nothing, boybands and the current administration, how he had to put his dog down last year and Sloane.

As they leave the park and go their separate ways, she gazes off after his retreating form, still clutching his jacket in his fist as he pulls a ringing cell phone from his pocket and answers it. He glances back over his shoulder and offers a sad, guilty, half-moon smile. She returns it, raising him a wave.

She revels in the ease, the feeling of reaching big R Right and big T Truth.

And Hope reigns as queen over her heart, mind, body, and soul.

***

She practically floats to her desk in the centre of the bullpen the next morning, a silly grin fixed across her face. Her travel mug of hot chocolate awaits her on the corner of her desk as she turns on her computer absent-mindedly, searching for Weiss, Vaughn, Marshall, Dixon, _anyone_ to whom she could gush about her indescribable hope and happiness.

She runs on only about ninety-four minutes of sleep, but she still bounds around the office like she chases after a rabbit, causing more than one of her colleagues to question her sanity and level of caffeine intake. She doesn't care: she will finally be with her soul mate, and nothing is ever going to bring her down.

Except maybe . . .

Weiss comes in through the front door at the same moment that Vaughn exits the elevator from the parking garage beneath the building.

Why did they enter separately?

Her attention initially torn, she tries focusing her gaze on the love of her life.

And the blonde who follows him out of the elevator.

They're holding hands.

The wedding ring still circles around his finger.

And she smells the tea radiating from the Styrofoam cup in his fist.

The hope she cherished so dearly moments before now hardens in pockets throughout her body like leprous lesions, and she has the strong, sudden urge to throw up. Repeatedly. All over him. She crests the peak of her happiness and plummets back down the other side. Back down to where she used to be. No, wait: she passes that point as he passes her desk without even acknowledging her.

If her gun had not been in her locker downstairs, she does not know what she would have done.

Heaving a pained sigh, she collects her travel mug and goes to take a sip only to connect with a scrap of paper instead. Unfolding it, she recognizes his familiar, hasty scrawl: _She still needs me._

Not even an apology.

And what about _her?_

Crumpling the paper with more force than necessary, she tosses it into her mini garbage can, tears prickling the corners of her eyes, and avoids him for the rest of the day. She dumps out her coffee in the bathroom sink, watches it swirl down the drain.

Guess it'll be just another night tonight.

_**END**_


End file.
